Jeo and Mikal are foster brothers from a small town in Pakistan. Though they were inseparable as children, their adult lives have diverged: Jeo is a dedicated medical student, married a year; Mikal has been a vagabond since he was fifteen, in love with a woman he can’t have. But when Jeo decides to sneak across the border into Afghanistan—not to fight with the Taliban against the Americans, rather to help care for wounded civilians—Mikal determines to go with him, to protect him. Yet Jeo’s and Mikal’s good intentions cannot keep them out of harm’s way. As the narrative takes us from the wilds of Afghanistan to the heart of the family left behind—their blind father, haunted by the death of his wife and by the mistakes he may have made in the name of Islam and nationhood; Mikal’s beloved brother and sister-in-law; Jeo’s wife, whose increasing resolve helps keep the household running, and her superstitious mother—we see all of these lives upended by the turmoil of war. In language as lyrical as it is piercing, in scenes at once beautiful and harrowing, The Blind Man’s Garden unflinchingly describes a crucially contemporary yet timeless world in which the line between enemy and ally is indistinct, and where the desire to return home burns brightest of all.

    Rich with the uncanny sense of life and action characteristic of his writing — from his earliest stories (In Our Time) to his last novella (The Old Man and the Sea) — this compelling novel contains both the warmth of recollection that inspired A Moveable Feast and a rare glimpse of Hemingway's rich and relaxed sense of humor, which enlivens scene after scene. Beginning in the 1930s, Islands in the Stream follows the fortunes of Thomas Hudson from his experiences as a painter on the Gulf Stream island of Bimini, where his loneliness is broken by the vacation visit of his three young sons, to his antisubmarine activities off the coast of Cuba during World War II. The greater part of the story takes place in a Havana bar, where a wildly diverse cast of characters — including an aging prostitute who stands out as one of Hemingway's most vivid creations — engages in incomparably rich dialogue. A brilliant portrait of the inner life of a complex and endlessly intriguing man, Islands in the Stream is Hemingway at his mature best.

    Elegaic, macabre, chimerical, Funeral Rites is a dark meditation on the mirror images of love and hate, sex and death.

    Somerset Maugham's ode to the powerful forces behind creative genius. Charles Strickland is a staid banker, a man of wealth and privilege. He is also a man possessed of an unquenchable desire to create art. As Strickland pursues his artistic vision, he leaves London for Paris and Tahiti, and in his quest makes sacrifices that leave the lives of those closest to him in tatters. Through Maugham's sympathetic eye, Strickland's tortured and cruel soul becomes a symbol of the blessing and the curse of transcendent artistic genius, and the cost in humans' lives it sometimes demands.

    Oliver Twist, published in 1838 and set in London's Victorian underworld, is a novel of social protest, a morality tale and detective story. The orphan Oliver, Viper Fagan, Bill Sykes, and the Artful Dodger are some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. A Tale of Two Cities, published in 1859, is Dickens's great novel of the French Revolution. In it he brings to life a time of terror and treason, when a starving populace rose in fury to overthrow a corrupt and decaying regime. the human story within the Revolution is the duality of the heart, embodied by two of his greatest characters: Charles Darnay and Sidney Carton.Great Expectations, published in 1861, is the story of Pip and the mysterious fortune which falls into his lap. It is both comic and tragic, filled with memories of childhood fairy tales with a twist. One of Dickens' greatest achievements, it is a novel, as Graham Greene comments, filled with secret prose giving us, "the sense of a minds peaking to itself with no one to listen." A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, is his most beloved story, as much a part of Christmas as mistletoe and carolers. Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Bob Crachit and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future all occupy a special place in our hearts and memories.(front flap)

    Snuffing Out the Moon is a dazzling debut novel that is at once a cry for freedom and a call for resistance.Advance Praise for Snuffing Out the Moon ‘Criss-crossing historical periods and populating its multiple narratives with a diverse set of characters, Snuffing Out the Moon is a daringly original novel charting the past and the future of our civilization, and so illuminating the author’s view of our present. A challenging and thought-provoking read’—Shashi Tharoor, author and MP‘This novel stirred strange feelings in me. Its air is bleak and somehow forbidding. It is vast in scope but comparatively compressed in a space that the novelist uses expertly to draw for us the lineages of the past, the present and the future. It leaves us with the chilling vision that evil—greed or the impulse to destroy—is man’s destiny. Masterfully composed, the novel sums up aeons of history and culture with an assurance of narrative power that makes the picture of the past and the present as compelling as his imaginings of the future. Present fears are no less than the horrible imaginings, the novel seems to say. Learned and sagacious, the narrative pleases while it also awes the reader’—Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, author of The Mirror of Beauty‘Osama Siddique’s ambitious historical novel will be of consequence not only to Pakistan but to the Indian subcontinent’—Bapsi Sidhwa, author of Ice-Candy-Man‘Innovative, introspective and evocative, this remarkable debut novel gives poignant expression to an age-old human dilemma and one of the central challenges of our own troubled times: the choice between stultifying social conformity born of ignorance, intellectual laziness and fear, and the liberating agency that comes from doubt, dissent and defiance. Polyphonic in scope and written in the fragmentary and episodic mode, the intriguingly titled Snuffing Out the Moon deftly weaves together half a dozen different narratives informed by the rich sociopolitical, cultural and literary traditions of South Asia’s six millennia- long history. Beginning in 2084 BCE with the Indus Valley Civilization and ending in 2084 CE when the deadly politics of religious radicalism and water wars have drastically recast the face of South Asia, the novel is a gripping read. It dispenses with linear time by criss-crossing the past, present and the future in a disconnected fashion without becoming random and trivial or devoid of inner meaning and connectedness. A welcome addition to South Asia’s burgeoning trove of English-language literature, it will engage and absorb a cross-section of readers with its sparkling wit, lyrical bursts and welter of insights into human frailties and foibles’—Ayesha Jalal, historian and author of Jinnah: The Sole Spokesman

    When that fails, he dramatizes his novel. To Maxudov's surprise - and the resentment of literary Moscow - the play is accepted by the legendary Independent Theater, and Maxudov plunges into a vortex of inflated egos. Each rehearsal sees more and more sparks flying higher and higher, and less and less chance of poor Maxudov's play ever being performed. Black Snow is the ultimate backstage novel, and a masterly satire on Mikhail Bulgakov's ten-year love-hate relationship with Stanislavsky, Method acting, and the Moscow Arts Theater.This title comes with an introduction by Terry Gilliam. After a lifetime spent struggling against censorship, not least in the theater, Bulgakov died in 1940, not long after completing his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita. None of his major fiction was published during his lifetime.

    Dumas's subtle and moving portrait of a woman in love is based on his own love affair with one of the most desirable courtesans in Paris. This is a completely new translation commissioned for the World's Classics.

    He opens a store, and as his fortunes grow, so does the animosity between Freddy and his mother-in-law. While Freddy prospers under British rule, life with the domineering Jerbanoo is another matter entirely. This exuberant novel, full of rollicking humor, paints a vivid picture of life in the Parsee community.

    In this fictional memoir, the renowned composer Kuhn recounts his tangled relationships with two artists--his friend Heinrich Muoth, a brooding, self-destructive opera singer, and the gentle, self-assured Gertrude Imthor. Kuhn is drawn to Gertrude upon their first meeting, but Gertrude falls in love with Heinrich, to whom she is introduced when Kuhn auditions them for the leads in his new opera. Hopelessly ill-matched, Gertrude and Heinrich have a disastrous marriage that leaves them both ruined. Yet this tragic affair also becomes the inspiration for Kuhn's opera, the most important success of his artistic life.

    Chronicling the Indian struggle for freedom and independence from Great Britain, Tharoor directs his hilarious satire as much against Indian foibles as the bumbling of the British rulers.

    

    A Sort of Introduction and Pseudo Reality Prevails

    Ellen Wood played upon the anxieties of the Victorian middle classes who feared a breakdown of the social order as divorce became more readily available and promiscuity threatened the sanctity of the family. In her novel the simple act of hiring a governess raises the spectres of murder, disguise, and adultery. Her sensation novel was devoured by readers from the Prince of Wales to Joseph Conrad and continued to fascinate This edition returns for the first time to the racy, slang-ridden narrative of the first edition, rather than the subsequent stylistically 'improved' versions hitherto reproduced by modern editors.

    First published in France in 1862, it is Victor Hugo's greatest achievement--the ultimate tale of redemption. Former prisoner Jean Valjean struggles to live virtuously after an unexpected act of forgiveness by a kindly bishop changes his life. His righteous actions change people's lives in surprising ways and culminate in romance between two young people. Now available as part of the Word Cloud Classics series, Les Miserables is a must-have addition to the libraries of all classic literature lovers.